Charcuterie, Patson Daka, and the beginning of a football love affair

I was thrilled to witness an almost sacred moment this week: the finding of a football team!

We’ve spoken before about the mysterious and magical ways in which we discover our true allegiance. Sometimes we inherit our team from our parents, or because of the town where we were born.

At other times, it takes a special moment, an experience, or an insight for us to understand which team resonates with us. It’s about ourselves as much as the team. For instance, I was simply not ready to understand that I was a Chelsea fan, until that evening at the Original Bohemian in Auckland Park, where I watched us get unjustly eliminated in a Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, and just knew!

I had always been Chelsea, I just hadn’t gotten to know myself well enough yet. I was like those people who get married and have three children and then at age 60 they meet the love of their lives and realise they’re actually gay. And they begin a new relationship and move to a charcuterie farm outside McGregor.

By that analogy, Stamford Bridge is my spiritual charcuterie farm, and I am gay for Chelsea.

However, not all of us know our sporting love match. It’s not that easy. It’s not handed to you on a plate, like some sliced salami, as it were.

We try on some teams, almost like going on Tinder dates. Or Grindr dates. But it may not work out at all. You watch Man U at your friend’s house, snacking on biltong and droëwors, and it’s fun, but it doesn’t touch your heart.

You go watch some Premier League at the Arsenal bar, and they even win, but still no fireworks. The earth doesn’t move. Why should you support Arsenal? You need a logical, an emotional and sometimes even a spiritual reason!

You can play the field, to use a sporting metaphor, and still come up empty-handed. Desperate for a team to support, willing and able to dedicate four, six, eight hours of your life to them every week. But still nothing grabs you.

Then! Out of nowhere, something happens, a random twist of fate, and everything falls into place. That is what occurred this week on our WhatsApp group.

For months now, we have been trying in vain to find a team for our mate Bourgie. He has been dying to experience the passion and fulfilment of a fully realised fan relationship with an English Premier League team.

He has followed the same process of attempting and trying on teams, but without any real success. He is Zambian, so we did some research, and found out that there is a Zambian, Enock Mwepu, playing for Brighton in the premiership.

There it was, his countryman, and an unheralded club suddenly in the upper reaches of the league. A rags-to-riches story!

All the ingredients were there, but somehow the Enock Mwepu/Brighton rationale didn’t quite stick. It was like making a charcuterie sausage where all the offal ingredients are present, but there’s no spice! Brain, heart, kidney… it’s all there, but not enough pepper, paprika and coriander!

Bourgie didn’t particularly care for Brighton. There was none of the banter you expect after a Brighton win. Even when Enock Mwepu scored the odd goal. No cheeky memes, no Seagulls logos on his bio…

Then, just as it seemed that Bourgie would lose hope of ever finding true love in the football world, an amazing thing happened. A man named Patson Daka scored four goals for Leicester against Spartak Moscow. Four goals!

Not only that, but he scored a cracker winning goal against Man United the weekend before. The man is becoming a legend mere weeks after being signed. And where is he from? You guessed it – Kafue in Zambia. Mere kilometres from where Bourgie stays!

Verily, Cupid’s charcuterie knife had struck home. Bourgie was smitten like a blushing lesbian bride at a wine-farm wedding outside Swellendam. Pretty soon, the WhatsApp group was beaming with snaps of him and his family sporting Leicester Foxes gear and declaring their love for their fellow Zambian Patson Daka.

And thus began another great love affair. Bourgie had found his football team. A rags-to-riches team that has risen from League 1 to win the Premiership and even the FA Cup last year. A team of heroes. A team with a Zambian in it. A team to drive him mad with happiness and regret by turns.

It was indeed magical to witness. Who is to say, whether this fascination will blossom into true love. But I wish Bourgie well on his journey. It may just be sport, but for fans, our relationships with our teams are as real as any other.